Tag: Assassins Creed

The Magus Conspiracy

I have been provided with an advance copy of the new Assassins Creed book The Magus Conspiracy by the wonderful Kate Heartfield, published by Aconyte Books, so here is the honest review I promised in exchange for the book.

So here is an important disclaimer which is always important to put out there first. I have a casual work contact with Asmodee to demonstrate board games for them in stores and at conventions. Asmodee being the parent company of Aconyte the publisher.

I am going to try my best to not let that cloud my judgement in this review, but I accept that subconsciously it might.

So let’s crack on with a review then!

What is Assassin Creed

Assassins Creed is an adventure game franchise published by Ubisoft (One of my Edge of Empire Co-hosts used to work there as well I should probably mention), and depicts a millennia-old conflict between the Assassins, who fight to preserve free will, and the Templars who desire to bring around peace by controlling people.

The games take place throughout various historical periods, the original 2007 game being set in the era of the 3rd Crusades, and the latest game Assassins Creed Valhalla, set in the Viking Invasion of Britain, and the next game Assassin’s Creed Mirage will be set in Baghdad during the Islamic Golden Age.

The Story

This book takes place over about a decade before Assassin’s Creed Syndicate, starting in 1851 with the passing of Ada Lovelace, the genius daughter of Lord Byron. Confessing to her friend, the 19 year old acrobat Pierrette Arnaud, her concerns over technology and ideas she may have passed onto a shadowy mysterious correspondent, known only as the Magus.

Meanwhile, Adas childhood friend Simeon Price, is shipwreaked when the troopship, HMS Birkenhead, carrying him and his regiment to the Cape Colony runs aground. After being saved by a mysterious cloaked stranger, he decides to take the strangers advice, and desert from the army, and seek out a new brotherhood in Vienna.

When Ada finally passes away, she leaves Pierrette with instructions to seek out Simeon, having received word that he survived, believing that he may be able to undo what she has done and stop the Magus.

And thus our characters are thrown into a decade spanning adventure, as they encounter the Assassin’s and learn that Nothing is True, Everything is Permitted.

Conclusion

Look, I am always gonna look on an Assassin’s Creed book with a fairly high opinion as its one of my favourite video game IPs, I am currently replaying Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood, so I may be a bit biased in that regard.

The Magus Conspiracy weaves through a period of history that in the UK, we kind of look back on as being fairly stable and an era of massive industrial revolution, but on the continent it was an age of upheaval, revolution and brutal repression.

This particular story, as with many Assassin’s Creed games, takes us through historic events, such as the 1853 attempted assassination of Emperor Franz Joseph and the Orsini Affair and has us encounter historic characters, such as Julius Jacob von Haynau, the Habsburg Tiger, John Ruskin and Lizzie Siddal.

This book feels like a love letter to the period and gives us a fantastic trip through parts of Europe as events such as the unification of Italy are in full swing, the Crimean war is underway and Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte crowns himself as Napoleon III.

Crack is this book, stands on its own quite well, knowing a bit about the games, will help ease you in, but its easy enough to grasp the key concepts.

The characters are nicely well rounded and feel like whole people, and I am very much looking forward to the publication of the rest of the trilogy, to encounter them some more.

Now the Magus, well, I clocked who he was pretty quickly, which was a bit of a shame, but sometimes that’s just the way things need to work, after all, I was holding more facts than the characters were.

There is plenty of action here, and I loved the little decision that Pierrette made that meshes up with the real history and is an obvious place for a sequel!

I came away from this book, kinda hoping that Ubisoft do something with the characters and put them in a game, oh and meeting Ethan Frye and Jayadeep Mir again was a nice little treat!

Easy 5 out of 5 Stars!


The Magus Conspiracy is out now as a paperback, ebook and audiobook!

Angron and Pippin

We got rabbits, they are adopted from a rescue and so far are acting cute, but I know they are up to something.

I am sure these little gits are planning trouble, just know it!

They are brothers and are named Pippin and Angron Eater of Cables, and yeah, they are gonna be little shits!

Ok to be fair they are hella cute and when they snuggle up and cuddle it’s heckin adorable, but still, they are up to something!

What I Am Modelling

I painted up a squad of Templar Brethren and their Land Raider Proteus transport.

The Land Raider was finished first.

Followed by the Tenplar Brethern thenselves.

After that I painted up the Hobgrot Slittaz for my Orruk Warclans army, really hoping these guys might see use in a Chaos Dwarves army one day!

The Leagues of Votann Kâhl & Einhyr Champion have got to wait a little bit as I need a specific shade, and I am topping up paint in the 6th.

So I then moved on and painted The Crimson Court.!

I got the Lieutenants for the Ultramarines on the painting desk now!


So whats coming up next?

  1. Silver Tower Skink Priest & Starblood Stalkers
  2. Leagues of Votann Kâhl & Einhyr Champion
  3. Ultramarines Lieutenants x 8
  4. Battle Sisters Squad x 10
  5. Ogroid Thaumaturge
  6. Killaboss x 2 & Stab Grot
  7. Drukhari Wyches x 10 & Succubus
  8. Necron Tomb Blades x 6
  9. Imperial Fists Kratos
  10. Inquisitors x 3

What I Am Reading

My review of The Veiled Masters by Tim Pratt can be read here.

And I published a review of Garro: Knight of Grey on Edge of Empire, here.

I listened to Sword of Orion by Nicholas Briggs, which was a bit fun, nice to hear the Eighth Doctor take on the Cybermen.

I finished The Flower Path by Josh Reybolds and you can read a review here.

I am now reading Daybreak Legacy by Stewart Hotson.

What Tabletop Games I Am Playing

On Sunday evening I played a game of Carcassonne: Winter Edition, I came second, Megan played her usual excellent field game!

What Video Games I Am Playing

Started on Assassin’s Creed The Ezio Collection again to get that completed, streaming it as planned.

So I managed to get in 6 sessions, which are also on YouTube.

Goldeneye 007 finally hit Gamepass on Friday and of course it’s now downloaded to both the Series S and Series X!

Had a quick play on Friday and oh my it’s good!

What I am Creating

We published the very first episode of Edge of Empire for 2023 on Saturday!

And on Monday, I published the first Battle Report of 2023, a match up between the Ultramarines and the T’au Empire.

What I Am Winning

I won a copy of The Jumping Muffin Turbo on Thursday!

And a book I won arrived, not my cup of tea, but will go in the Christmas present box.

And I won a copy of The Bat Quiz too.

And I won Woodle Tree 2 Deluxe on Saturday!

I also won a Bunch of Butts, not sure where from but, it’s gonna be something to give away next Christmas.

What I Am Spending

Had to replace my Vortex mixer as the one I bought in October just died, so Amazon replaced it with the same one.


Sword of the White Horse

I have been provided with an advance copy of the new Assassins Creed book Sword of the White Horse by the amazing Elsa Sjunneson , published by Aconyte Books, so here is the honest review I promised in exchange for the book.

So here is an important disclaimer which is always important to put out there first. I have a casual work contact with Asmodee to demonstrate board games for them in stores and at conventions. Asmodee being the parent company of Aconyte the publisher.

I am going to try my best to not let that cloud my judgement in this review, but I accept that subconsciously it might.

I also think I may have met Elsa at the Dublin WorldCon, but I met a lot of people that week and my memory is still addled by the curse of brain damage!

So let’s crack on with a review then!

What is Assassin Creed

Assassins Creed is an adventure game franchise published by Ubisoft (One of my Edge of Empire Co-hosts used to work there as well I should probably mention), and depicts a millennia-old conflict between the Assassins, who fight to preserve free will, and the Templars who desire to bring around peace by controlling people.

The games take place throughout various historical periods, the original 2007 game being set in the era of the 3rd Crusades, and the latest game Assassins Creed Valhalla, set in the Viking Invasion of Britain, and that is the setting of this book.

The Story

This book is set after the events of the main Assassins Creed Valhalla game, and before any of the DLC in 878.

Niamh, a witch-warrior of Avalon and her clan, the Women of the Mist finds herself given a mission by The Lady, the leader of Avalon, to respond to a letter sent by The Hidden Ones, and infiltrate the organisation to find out what their plan is.

Travelling from Argyll beyond Hadrian’s Wall to the city of Lunden in Mercia, she finds herself drawn into the conflict between the Hidden Ones and the Order of the Ancients, as she works to uncover the threat the latter poses to the people of her faith, and the Women of the Mist.

Challenged in her preconceptions, she has to put aside prejudice to work with Northmen, Romans and those from further afield, as she seeks to find an ancient relic, which if acquired by the Order of Ancients, could lead the islands into darkness.

Conclusion

I have yet to play Assassins Creed Valhalla, but the stuff I do know fit in quite well with the book, and it was rather enjoyable.

I devoured it, in two sittings, finding myself unable to put it down until I was literally too sleepy to concentrate.

I was kinda hoping for a bit more of her learning the trade of the Hidden Ones, and ascending the ranks to become an Assassin, but the story didn’t need it, if anything, I would have loved this book to be twice as long.

A lot of excellent world building and the sights, sounds and smells of Mercia felt so real, its a very descriptive story.

There was a lot of great stuff that forced Niamh to overcome prejudices, especially towards Christians and Northmen, as she found herself working to save and work with people from those backgrounds, whilst keeping her true motives hidden, despite knowing the two groups should be natural allies.

I was really excited by this book, and was looking forward to it, but I really wish it was longer.

My only real criticism, is that character development felt, shallow, which I think was a compromise between fitting so much story in and keeping its length down. But I could never really get a good grasp on Niamhs character, was she a planner or did she go by the seat of her pants, cause she kinda never seemed to fit into either, and I struggled to understand her personality.

Also it did feel like the novelisation of a game, with distances and time being a bit wishy washy, but that’s just nitpicking.

I am giving it 4 out of 5 stars, which feels stingy for how much I enjoyed it, but I really think the faults it did have, really could have been resolved with more pages.


Sword of the White Horse is out now as a paperback, ebook and audiobook.

Assassin’s Creed – Review After Replay

So I have decided after my recent play though of Assassins Creed, which you can see on YouTube, to give you a review.

First off let me give you a bit of background to my relationship with Assassins Creed. I first bought the game when I got a PlayStation 3 on release, and I actually ended up trading it in very quickly because it felt dull and repetitive.

But about a year later I was given it on Xbox 360 and it was a very different beast, it was a lot more enjoyable and the reason for that was achievements.

Those dull repetitive things now became things I wanted to do because I wanted the achievements, I spent a lot of time in that game trying to score as much G as possible.

And the story got me hooked as well, and it still is a very good story.

Anyway so how does it hold up from a modern perspective, well it’s a bit middling.

The game still looks good, I think games of that generation still hold up today and frankly are comparable to those on mobile phones and even the Switch, yeah the textures are a bit meh, but it still looks amazing.

The score is wonderful and very atmospheric, but the speech of the NPCs is very repetitive, which is think is a result if the limited size of the DVD media that it was released on for Xbox 360, and it didn’t really take advantage of the Blu-Ray disk for PS3.

Gameplay is still good, but the initial complaints still stand, it’s dull and repetitive and I can see why Ubisoft have not remastered this game, it would need more than some HD textures to improve it, it needs a whole remake.

The crack is that doing the game without achievements, although I did have some to collect still, makes it a much less enjoyable game, because it feels like you are doing the exact same thing over and over again.

Yeah it set up the franchise, but it is, absolutely not a classic, if anything it’s a bit of a disappointment in retrospect.

It just doesn’t stand up to modern standards, but the green shoots of what would come in the sequel are there and waiting to be improved upon.

Assassins Creed as a franchise has come a long way, and this was that first step.

Flawed, but with its own charm.


Scoring this game is difficult, I love the story, Altair is an engaging character, it looks good and the score is evocative.

But the gameplay gets boring very quickly.

So I have to give the game 2 out of 5.

Hardware

  • Xbox Series S
  • Xbox Controller
  • 1080p

My Nana

My beloved nana, a woman who has been so influential in my life passed away after a long illness last week.

Its left me in a bit of a state even though it was long expected.

She was always there for her grandchildren and anything we could have done for her was never enough.

She lead an interesting life, from her time as an evacuee, an army career, beating the crap out of terrorists (I wish I was joking about that one), time as a social worker and bringing up five children on her own after my grandfather abandoned her.

She was a tough geordie battleaxe and whilst not a perfect woman, she was always there for me when I needed her.

Her funeral is next month and I am just trying to get through until then, but the grief over losing her is kinda hard to deal with.

Nana, I will miss you, and I will make sure to make my tea the way you taught me!

What I Am Modelling

I started the week by painting the Vertus Praetors and a Captain on a Dawneagle Jetbike for my Custodes.

And these mark the last models overall for my Custodes in both 30k and 40k, I currently have no more to paint at all 🙁

After that it was on to some Ork Flashgitz, which were a lot of fun to paint!

I then moved on to paint a unit of Skitarii Rangers for my Adeptus Mechanicus army, which gives me two squads of them overall.

I then painted up some Primaris Space Wolves, a pair of Battle Leaders, a Rune Priest and some Aggressors.

I am now working on some Assault Intercessors for my Blood Ravens.


So what’s coming up next week then?

  1. Blood Ravens Assault Intercessors x 5
  2. Adeptus Mechanicus Sicarian Ruststalkers x 5
  3. T’au Pathfinder’s x 10
  4. Death Korps of Krieg Kill Team
  5. Blades of Khorne Blood Warriors x 10
  6. Orruk Megaboss
  7. Necron Flayed Ones x 5
  8. Snottlings Blood Bowl Team
  9. Imperial Navy Thunderbolts x 2 & Marauder Bomber x 2
  10. Soulblight Gravelords Mortis Engine

What I Am Reading

I finished The Rebels of Vanaheim and you can click that link to go to my review.

I also finished Cult of the Spider Queen (Review coming soon) and am now working on Witches Unleased.

What Video Games Am I Playing

I have been playing a bit of Forza Horizon 5.

I started Assassins Creed with a 5 hour stream, and managed to eliminate two of the targets!

You can watch it in YouTube here!

And on Saturday morning, quite early I had an impromptu session cause I missed Thursday with being grief stricken still.

What Tabletop Games Am I Playing

I had a game of Horus Heresy with Graham, and I scored my third win against him ever, by two points, one of which was Slay The Warlord.

Was a very fun game, I suspect that the Death Guard are my favourite Heresy army overall, I just like their grittiness!

What Am I Creating

Well I returned to video game streaming and managed to stream 5 hours of Assassins Creed which you can see above.

I have started a new YouTube series, Wargamer News, you can see the pilot here, and will start regular episodes from this week.

What I Am Backing

Gloomier arrived!

Although the Griefcase was missing the dividers, I contacted Atlas Games and they say that they are in the post!

What I Am Spending

I bought myself the PC Building Simulator Humble Bundle, cause it’s a fun game!

I also picked up a new light box after mine died just before Christmas

And I got a paint restock from Element Games, along with dice and cards for my Nurgle Blood Bowl team!

The Ming Storm

I have been provided with an advance copy of the new Assassins Creed book The Ming Storm by Yan Lei Sheng, published by Aconyte Books, so here is the honest review I promised in exchange for the book.

So here is an important disclaimer which is always important to put out there first. I have a casual work contact with Asmodee to demonstrate board games for them in stores and at conventions. Asmodee being the parent company of Aconyte the publisher.

I am going to try my best to not let that cloud my judgement in this review, but I accept that subconsciously it might.

So let’s crack on with a review then!

What is Assassin Creed

Assassins Creed is an adventure game franchise published by Ubisoft (One of my Edge of Empire Co-hosts works there as well I should probably mention), and depicts a millennia-old conflict between the Assassins, who fight to preserve free will, and the Templars who desire to bring around peace by controlling people.

The games take place throughout various historical periods, the original 2007 game being set in the era of the 3rd Crusades, and the latest game Assassins Creed Valhalla, set in the Viking Invasion of Britain.

This book is based on Assassins Creed Chronicles China.

The Story

This takes part after the short film, Assassins Creed: Embers in 1526 China and features the female assassin, Shao Jun, who has returned from Europe where she trained with the protagonmist of the second game, Ezio Auditore da Firenze.

She returns to China to fight the Eight Tigers, a group of eunuchs aligned with the Templars in the court of the Jianjing Emperor.

Prior to the novel, the Eight Tigers had all but wiped out the Assassins of China, leaving just Shao Jun and her mentor alive, so this is very much a story about revenge.

Conclusion

Look I wanted to love this book I really did, I am a big fan of the games, but this book just didn’t work, it was not an enjoyable read at all.

There is no real flow to the book as so much technical detail is thrown in, and it just gets so mired in trying to describe every single kung-fu move being used and its meaning.

The narrative changes point of view in a way that makes you have to go back and go right when did this characters point of view come in, I had to reread so much simply because there was little warning when the perspective changed.

It should have been a great action novel and don’t get me wrong, the story itself is really good, excellent in fact, but I struggled to read it, its just doesn’t work.

I hate giving a bad review it hurts me, but I see potential in this book, a round of editing to deal with the persepective changes and some heavy cuts to make the fight scenes flow better and I think that underneath is a good novella.

But it feels like its been padded out to make a novel.

2 out of 5 stars.


The Ming Storm is out as an eBook now and as paperback on the 19th August.


Mood:- In Agony
Caffeinated Beverages Consumed:– 4
In My Ears:Chicken Wing Song – Leo Moracchioli
Tabletop Game Last Played:- Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Fluxx
Video Game Last Played:- Forza Horizon 4
Book Last Read:- The Necropolis Empire – Tim Pratt
Movie/TV Show Last Viewed:- Parks and Recreation
Current State of Projects:- Blackstone Fortress Explorers about 50% Done

Powered by WordPress & Theme by Anders Norén